Note: This is a guest post that I wrote which originally appeared on www.adailyshotofcoffee.com back in June, 2010. As far as I know, the site is no longer operational.

Coffee shops are well-known for being a community gathering place and a venue to meet friends and strangers. I typically go to a coffee shop to get work done, generate ideas and get out of the house. In other words, I’m often anti-social and immersed in reading and getting things done when I do go.

Last November, while running errands in downtown Chicago, I headed into my favorite coffee shop, Intelligentsia. It was cool and crisp outside and I needed to warm up and get energized.

As a coffee lover, I can appreciate the service and quality of coffee served at the chain coffee franchises. But there is something extra special about the coffee served at Intelligentsia. One look at the baristas behind the counter and you’ll notice how intense and serious they are – they don’t just care about their coffee, they obsess about it. I’m serious. Their barista’s are as passionate about their coffee much like a graphic designer is passionate about his or her Mac.

I get my medium latté served to me in a fairly large ceramic cup, complete with a very artistic swirl on top. Not only has Intelligentsia perfected the taste of their carefully-roasted beans, but they’ve perfected latté art.

As much as I love Intelligentsia’s coffee, dining space at their Monadnock Building location feels a little tight. I find a spot at the counter against the wall and sit down. I savor the taste of my latté and immerse myself in a notebook filled with ideas and notes.

As I work, I notice a slightly heavy-set middle-aged woman glancing toward me. After trading several glances, she steps toward me and asks with a noticeable accent, “where is the art museum from here?”

I tell her that it’s less than a mile from here. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I enjoy playing tour guide to visitors to the city. I love to direct tourists to places off the beaten path and places that are unique to the city. Had I been asked about the best coffee shop to visit, I would have said Intelligentsia.

We talk for 15 or 20 minutes about our home cities. It turns out she’s an artist from Amsterdam. We also talk about the current state of the economy in the United States, corrupt politicians, art and sports. I learn that she’s in the United States to visit her son who plays college basketball at a local university.

Both the conversation and the coffee are equally enjoyable. Even though I’ve only talked to the woman for 15 minutes, I feel like I’ve known her much longer. I admire her for her exploration of Chicago by bicycle in November and I give her ideas for places to visit while she’s in Chicago.

We finish our coffee and she realizes that its starting to get dark and that she should get going. She writes her name and email address on a small piece of paper and invites me to stay with her family if I ever decide to visit Amsterdam. I thank her profusely and we say goodbye. I’m awestruck by her generous offer.

While it was an ordinary fall day, my conversation with this woman was unforgettable. I head home feeling grateful – grateful for the feeling of community and for the taste of my favorite coffee. A great combination….ah, life is good.

If you’re a big Downton Abbey fan like me, you might remember a scene from an episode in the first season. Carson, the Head Butler, sits down to make his first phone call on a “strange” device known as the telephone. As he sits down, he stares at the phone with a strong sense of dis-trust. In his mind, the telegraph has been a perfectly good means of communication. He begrudgingly makes an awkward first phone call and is suddenly ushered into a new technological era.

Today, there’s a group of people just like the Carson the Butler from Downton Abbey. They’re set in their ways, don’t like change and don’t know what to make of today’s new communications tools (such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn). Perhaps they’re overwhelmed or just don’t see the point in learning and spending time on them.

Like them or not, these communications tools are not a passing fad. They’ve revolutionized the way people communicate with each other and have changed the way businesses communicate with and attract new customers.

In the past few years, I’ve had the chance to sit down and talk with leaders of organizations (and ordinary citizens) about social media and, in some cases, guide them through the creation of their first Twitter account. After spending time with these Twitter newbies, I see the light bulbs go off in their head. Slowly, they begin to appreciate these tools and understand their potential.

Recently, I had the opportunity to watch Erik Qualman’s latest “Socialnomics 2014” video (see below). What caught my attention was the statement that grandparents are the fastest growing demographic on Twitter. This gave me some satisfaction since I’ve always appreciated Twitter’s potential to connect people and build community. At the same time, Twitter will not and should not ever replace the face-to-face communication that takes place in bars, coffeehouses and at grandma’s kitchen table. But the growth of new users in older demographics on Twitter is an encouraging sign that a new group of users is willing to learn some of these social media tools.

How about you…have your parents or grandparents embraced any “new” social media tools? What has their experience been like?

Life is unpredictable…one minute it’s going great. The next minute, it’s filled with challenges and adversity. There’s so much about life we cannot control. And, as we learn in Victor Frankl’s A Man’s Search for Meaning and throughout our lives, we are always in control of one important thing: our attitude.

I feel very fortunate to be helping out a great organization, The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH), with some social media and other marketing initiatives. In just a few weeks (April 3 – 6), their 27th Annual Humor Conference will commence in Vincennes, Indiana. If you have an opportunity, please consider attending the conference, it’s guaranteed to give you some laughs and teach you a thing or two along the way.

“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.” – Bill Cosby

In the world of social media, the word “friend” gets used quite a bit. Perhaps overused. Many of us get onto Facebook and Twitter to promote ourselves, our businesses, our causes, our points of view. If we’re lucky, we run into like-minded individuals who entertain, enlighten and make us laugh.

In some cases, we get a chance to meet our social media friends and followers in person and get to know the human being behind that avatar. Otherwise, we get to know these virtual friends through their writing, the information they share and any social media interactions.

Last week, I learned that a Twitter connection (and familiar face), Judy Martin (@JudyMartin8) passed away. Shocking to me for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that we had just communicated on Twitter days before her passing.

As a Twitter follower of Judy Martin’s, I enjoyed the information she shared about work/life balance, mindfulness and leadership. After her response to my Tweet, I got to know her a little better by spending 10 or 15 minutes reading posts on her website and listening to part of a guided meditation she produced. The topics she explored resonated with me and I gained a deeper appreciation for her work.

Her passing makes me realize that every day, whether in face-to-face communication or on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, we are leaving a legacy behind. There’s no telling how our stories, words, or a smile (even a virtual one) may help or touch another person at a time when it’s needed.

As I close this post, I realize it might be presumptuous of me to call her a friend – for I never had the opportunity to meet her in person. However, I do feel a deep sense of shock and loss at her passing. I’m sure this is an especially difficult time for those who were close to her. For an amazing tribute to Judy, please visit Lisa Petrilli’s The Sign of a True Leader: A Tribute to Judy Martin.

Aerosmith and Run DMC, Anthrax and Public Enemy, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas, Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. These are just some of music’s notable and unlikely collaborations. In these cases, and others like it, musicians come together from different musical genres and introduce their fans to a new sound. What results from this collaboration is often experimental, different, unusual. Many times it works, other times it does not.

As a fan of music from a young age, this collaboration expanded my musical horizons and opened my mind to new, different musical possibilities.

One band that has grabbed my attention through collaboration with other artists is The Roots. As house band for Jimmy Fallon’s late night program, they’ve had the opportunity to jam with a host of different artists. In the case with Elvis Costello, it worked. They’ve also released albums with John Legend and 70’s singer Betty Wright.

Tonight is Grammy Night and while I’ve long lost interest in who will win a particular Grammy, I love watching the musical collaborations between different artists from different genres. It sucks me in every time. And it reminds me that collaboration is something that can be applied to other areas of life.

How about you…what are some of your favorite collaborations, musical or otherwise?

As we celebrate the start of another year, many of us take time to reflect, create goals and make resolutions. The beginning of the year is a great time to do this and we feel like we have the opportunity for both a clean slate and a fresh start. While Mitch Joel’s book Ctrl Alt Delete was released more than six months ago, the topic of making a fresh start and rebooting both business and career is timely.

Mitch Joel is a marketing expert who has run his own agency (Twist Image) for more than ten years and is an influential blogger at Six Pixels of Separation. If you’ve visited here before, you know that his weekly podcast is one of my favorites. He’s a great interviewer with a keen marketing mind and he always has a grasp on what’s happening in the world of marketing, business and technology.

Ctrl Alt Delete is a book divided into two sections: the first part focuses on how businesses need to and are currently rebooting. The second, focuses on us, the business and marketing professional.

In the first section, Joel describes how brands are shifting toward more direct relationships with consumers. He uses Apple and their retail stores as an example and notes that “Apple didn’t start in the retail business to compete with other consumer electronics stores; they went into retail for the direct relationship with their customers.”

One way businesses, brands and organizations create more direct relationships is through social media and the creation of their own media channels. Red Bull is a great example of this.

Another way brands are rebooting is by shifting from a broadcast mindset to one where immediate value is being provided to consumers. A prime example of this is when brands use smartphone apps to provide immediate value to its customers at a time when they need it. Some of the brands that stand out include LEGO, Nationwide Insurance, Proctor & Gamble and Nike.

Joel also shares insights on how brands use a wealth of data to target and attract customers and the shift to a one-screen world (a world where television, computer and smartphone screens are beginning to be used by everyone for the same purpose).

Information in this first section gives readers a better understanding of what’s happening in the world of business and a clue about what’s about to happen.

In the second section, Joel provides practical steps for marketing and business pros to reboot and stay relevant in the ever-shifting world of work.

First, Joel encourages readers to take a digital-first posture. In Joel’s mind this means that, “the first place your consumers go when making a business decision is to their computers, smartphones and/or tablets. This should be your default posture, as well.” He understands this is not an easy task for some marketers…but consumers are already there.

He also encourages us to take a more “squiggly” career path. The days of working at one company are disappearing and the new normal is for the average worker to have several different career changes over a lifetime. This can be very unsettling and uncertain. What I enjoyed about Joel’s perspective is that he sees this uncertainty as a positive and that it offers workers the opportunity to focus on projects and work they’re passionate about. Through his own experience, he describes this uncertainty in a glass-half full manner.

Joel also provides a plethora of valuable tools and suggestions for ways that we, as business and marketing professionals, can make ourselves more marketable. These suggestions are helpful and likely to get readers excited about the possibilities ahead.

He doesn’t promise this will be easy…but the opportunity for career success and satisfaction is there if we’re ready to embrace it.

As a marketing professional who has adopted a digital mindset, I enjoyed Ctrl Alt Delete. If you’re a marketing and/or business professional who’s not quite sure about what’s ahead but looking for the best ways to prepare for this uncertainty, pick up a copy of Ctrl Alt Delete. It’s a quick and informative read.

How about you…as a professional, what new skills have you learned to stay ahead in your industry? I’d love to hear about them.